Chapter 15
Ripplan
The quarterly reports lay scattered across Brylan's mahogany desk.
Numbers and projections that should have held my attention but didn't. I traced my finger down the feed cost column, the figures blurring slightly as my mind wandered to a place half a mile away, where soft lamplight still glowed in clinic windows.
"We're hemorrhaging money on grain," I said, forcing my focus back to the spreadsheet. "The supplier in Denver is gouging us. We need to renegotiate or find someone else."
Brylan didn't respond. When I looked up, he was leaning back in his leather chair, arms crossed over his chest, studying me with the kind of knowing expression that made my jaw tighten. Not looking at the reports at all. Looking at me.
"What?" The word came out sharper than I intended.
"Or," Brylan said slowly, deliberately, "we could talk about why you've been visiting the clinic at all hours of the day and night."
Heat crawled up the back of my neck. "We're not talking about that."
"We are now." His smile was infuriating.
The same one he'd worn as a youngster when he'd figured out which brother had stolen the last of Thurlee's honey cakes.
"The ranch hands are placing bets on when you're going to officially claim her.
Current odds are three-to-one you do it before summer's end. "
"It's none of their business." I turned back to the reports, pretending to study the numbers. The columns swam before my eyes.
"It's everyone's business when the foreman is sneaking around like a tuskling with his first crush." Brylan's tone was light, almost teasing, but there was something underneath it. Something more serious. "So what's going on, brother?"
"It's just sex." The words came out too fast, too defensive. Even I could hear the lie in them.
Brylan laughed. A short, sharp bark of sound that echoed off the office walls. "You're full of shit."
"I'm not—"
"Ripplan." He leaned forward, planting his elbows on the desk.
"You've left Carter and Dutton in the high pastures for weeks without rotating them out.
You assigned Hendricks to mucking stables for a month because he made a joke about Tammy's ass.
You nearly broke Mason's hand when he asked if she was single.
" He paused, letting each example land. "That's not 'just sex' behavior. That's mate behavior."
The word hit me like a fist to the sternum. Mate.
I stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the hardwood floor. My chest felt too tight, my skin too hot. I crossed to the window, needing distance, needing air, needing to look at something other than Brylan's too-perceptive eyes.
The sun was setting over the ranch, painting everything in shades of purple and gold.
Long shadows stretched across the pastures toward the mountains.
In the distance, I could just make out the clinic.
Tammy's clinic. A small structure with warm light spilling from its windows.
Half a mile away. Close enough to reach in minutes if she needed me.
Far enough that I couldn't hear her breathe, couldn't smell her scent, couldn't know if she was safe.
My hands curled into fists against the windowsill.
"It's complicated," I said finally, my voice rough.
"It's not, actually." Brylan's chair creaked as he stood. I heard him cross the room, felt him come to stand beside me at the window. "You remember what the elders used to tell us? About fated mates?"
I did. How could I forget? Stories told around fires in the deep places, when the day's mining was done and the clan gathered in the communal caverns.
Old Myrak, his tusks yellowed with age, his voice like gravel, spinning tales of Orcs who found their perfect match.
Bonds so deep they transcended choice, transcended logic.
Connections written in blood and bone and something older than either.
When you find your fated mate, Myrak had said, his eyes reflecting firelight, you'll know.
Their scent will call to you like nothing else.
You'll crave them like air, like water, like the very earth beneath your feet.
And once you've claimed them, once you've bound yourself to them, nothing will ever truly separate you.
Not distance, not death, not time itself.
I'd been young then. Skeptical. Hungry for the surface world I'd only heard about in whispers.
"Fairy tales," I said now, echoing my younger self's dismissal. "Stories to make arranged matings seem less miserable."
"Maybe." Brylan's reflection appeared in the window glass beside mine. "Or maybe not." He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice carried old pain. "You remember I was betrothed before we came to the surface?"
I glanced at him. "Zara's daughter. What was her name?"
"Kelda." The name fell flat from his lips, devoid of warmth.
"Beautiful. Strong. Perfect bloodlines. Our parents arranged it when we were children.
A political alliance to strengthen ties between our clan and hers.
" He paused, his jaw working. "I felt nothing for her.
Nothing. And she felt the same about me.
We would have been miserable together. Dutiful, perhaps. Productive. But miserable."
"That's why you came to the surface."
"That's why I ran to the surface." Brylan smiled, but there was no humor in it.
"Down there, mating is about alliances. Bloodlines.
Strengthening the clan through strategic partnerships.
Love is optional. A bonus if you're lucky enough to stumble into it.
" He turned to face me fully. "But up here? Up here, we get to choose."
"And?"
"And I think the elders' stories are true.
" His voice was steady, certain. "I think some Orcs are meant for specific people.
I think there's something in us that recognizes its match when it finds it.
Something primal, something we don't fully understand.
The scent that drives you mad. The craving that never stops.
The absolute certainty that this person, this one person, is yours.
" He paused. "How does Tammy smell to you? "
The question caught me off guard. "What?"
"Her scent. How does she smell?"
I opened my mouth to deflect, to lie, to say something dismissive that would end this conversation and let me retreat back into denial. But the truth clawed its way up my throat and spilled out before I could stop it.
"Like the most delicious thing I've ever encountered.
" My voice came out rough, almost broken.
"Sweetness and spice. Honey and cinnamon and something else I can't name.
It's everywhere. In my head, in my lungs, in my blood.
I can't stop breathing it in. Even when she's not near me, I can still smell her.
Like she's imprinted on my senses." I swallowed hard. "It's driving me insane."
The admission hung in the air between us. I waited for Brylan to laugh, to mock me, to tell me I was being ridiculous.
Instead, he asked quietly, "And how does she smell to me?"
I looked at him sharply.
"She smells fine," he said. "Pleasant. Clean. Like soap and herbs and human woman. Nothing special. Nothing that makes me want to follow her around like a lovesick fool." He met my eyes. "But to you, she's intoxicating. That's the difference, brother."
My heart was hammering against my ribs. "You think she's my fated mate."
"I think you already know she is." Brylan's voice was gentle. "You're just afraid to admit it."
Before I could respond, before I could process what he'd just said, what it meant, what it would change, the office door burst open.
Thurlee stood in the doorway, slightly out of breath, her usually neat braid coming loose around her face. Her expression was urgent in a way that sent ice through my veins.
"Ripplan." She didn't waste time with preamble. "You need to go to the clinic. Now."
I was already moving, my body responding before my mind caught up. "What's wrong? Is Tammy hurt?"
"No. But she needs you." Thurlee's voice softened, and something in her eyes made my chest ache. "I'm not an idiot, nephew. I know what's been happening between you two. And right now, that girl needs you more than she's ever needed anyone."
I didn't wait for more explanation. Didn't grab my jacket, didn't tell Brylan I was leaving. I was out the door and running before Thurlee finished speaking.
The half-mile to the clinic had never felt so long.
The clinic door was unlocked. I pushed through, my heart hammering, every sense on high alert as I scanned for threats. But the space was empty except for Tammy.
She stood at the counter with her back to me, surrounded by medication vials that caught the lamplight like small glass soldiers.
Her hands moved mechanically. Pick up a vial, read the label, place it in a cardboard box.
Pick up another. Read. Place. Over and over, the movements precise but somehow wrong. Too stiff. Too controlled.
Then I caught her scent.
Her usual sweetness was there, but underneath it, cutting through it like a knife, was something sharp and acrid. Distress. Fear. The kind of terror that makes prey animals freeze in place, hoping the predator won't notice them.
Something in my chest cracked open.
"Tammy."
She went still. For a heartbeat, she didn't move. Then she turned slowly, and I saw her face.
She'd been crying. Her eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks blotchy, her lips pressed together like she was trying to hold back another wave of tears. Her hair was disheveled, as if she'd been running her hands through it over and over.
She looked devastated. Broken. Lost.
I didn't say anything. Didn't ask questions. Just opened my arms.
She looked at me, really looked at me, and her face crumpled. Then she was moving, running across the clinic and crashing into me with enough force to make me take a step back. I caught her, wrapping my arms around her, holding her as tightly as I dared without hurting her.